Holding Writers Accountable

Last week, Salvatore Scibona won the ten-thousand-dollar Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library for his first novel, “The End” (Graywolf), an immigrant tapestry spun around a single day in 1953 at an Ohio carnival, a crime, and the interwoven tales of several homely and wise characters over seven decades. I wrote via his publisher to congratulate him, and to ask if he would mind telling us how, at this historic moment, with the public so eager to know, for instance, where all that A.I.G. bailout money is going (and where all that Madoff money went), he might be planning to spend what are in his case well-deserved and well-gotten gains? Mr. Scibona replied:

The night after I got your e-mail, I was at a dinner party a mile from Wall Street. I asked a new acquaintance how he would answer. We were eating fried chicken and cole slaw. He wore a tweed jacket with a green handkerchief in the pocket and a head of thick white curls—all in all, an absorbing conversationalist and a cheerful man. Given the state of the markets, what would he buy? He said, “A gun.”

My rule is to put all windfalls in the bank. However, two of my nieces in Ohio are making their First Communions in May and have reason to expect a kickback. I may also splurge on a load of manure for the garden.

Where I put the rest might say something about the folly of trying to stimulate spending with tax rebates, as was tried last year. I’m going to kill my college loans. It never seemed urgent before; the interest rates were so low. But where else can you find a guaranteed return of five and three quarters per cent right now?

Apologies to Mr. Geithner for failing to do my part to stimulate the consumer sector. I still drink the gin that comes in the blue plastic bottle.

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